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Infernal Contraption is a card game for 2-4 players. This review will be divided up into two sections, mechanics, and opinion.
Mechanics
Infernal contraption is not a usual card game. Each player has his own draw pile (spare parts). There are four different types of cards, power cores, mechanical cards, one use only cards, and multipliers. At the begning of the game each player will play cards from his hand and attach them to his machine. A machine can do a range of things from damaging an opponents spare parts pile, to letting a player restock his hand from the discard pile, to forcing an opponent to discard from his hand. A player will then target his machine at another player. A player may then redraw cards from his spare parts pile. Then the next player has their turn. Players are eliminated when they have no more cards in their draw pile.
These mechanics are made slightly more complicated in that every card has four 'plugs' one on each side of the card. To attach a card to the machine one must match up the plugs from the card you are trying to play to the card that is next to it in your machine. Additionally all mechanical cards must be attached to a power core. Also mechanical cards must be played horizontally, whilst one shots and multipliers must be played vertically. The end result is that your machine ends up looking like this
mulipliers
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-+-+--+ < mechanical cards as - and power cores as +
Opinion
The cards appear to fairly standard card stock. If you were going to play the game regularly I would suggest sleeves. There are some very cool illustrations on the cards, however in general the cards are too busy. The card has a large name at the top, the four plugs, the illustration, but the description is in size 8 font down the sides of the cards. This makes the cards hard to read whilst holding them in your hand. The game ensures that you have between 7 -10 cards in your hand for most of it, making it near impossible to both hold your cards and know what they will all do.
There is some planning in creating your machine due to the fact that you have to ensure your plug connections match. However due to the number of plugs, I found that often you could only match one or two mechanical cards to your machine during any given turn. This meant strategy existed ocassionally in the sense of 'Is this card better than this card?'. Due to the fact that your hand was fluid (due to the actions of your machine and other players machines) plannning to attach cards in later rounds was not worthwhile.
The game tries to add another layer of strategy by requiring players to pay a cost for the second and subsequent cards players add to their machines every turn. The idea is that if you build too much too soon it will cost you. The problem with this is that it does not work well with the one shot cards. It is often far more important to add a multiplier or a mechanical card than a one shot. One shots seem to be used as easy cards to discard.
However my biggest complaint is that the outcome is highly random. The winner will be the person who is attacked the least. As there is no trading, only threatening this is essentially random. This is particularly true as the machines become fairly powerful after several multipliers. The difference between having one attack a round, and two attacks a round is huge. This problem is compounded by the fact that the deck size is really too small. A larger deck size would help even this fact out. A practical effect of this is that often this game seems to boil down to three players, the active player can wipe either player out but not both, whilst both of them can retaliate and wipe out the active player.
So in conclusion whilst there can be strategy, I feel that the game essentially just forces the players to pick a winner. Winning is not about constructing the best machine, but rather by having the players just attack you one or two less times than anyone else.
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Hiding Tiger
Australia
Parmelia
Western Australia
Growf!
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jodokast wrote: Additionally all mechanical cards must be attached to a power core. Also mechanical cards must be played horizontally, whilst one shots and multipliers must be played vertically. I didn't read the rules that way at all. I admit, I haven't played it yet (lack of people to play with), but I didn't think there were many limitations on which cards could be played vertically and which horizontally. Multipliers can be horizontal, and their effect can work on more than one other card if played that way.
Also, some of the cards only work if attached to a power source, but there's no rule saying they must be attached to a power source. Such cards don't work themselves, but do not stop the rest of the contraption from working.
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Alex Martinez
United States
Irving
Texas
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I'll agree that you have misread the rules. The only cards that MUST be played as "plugs" (or vertically) are consumable cards. It's perfectly legal to place a power source as a plug, though this will usually be ineffecient since sources in that way can only power one machine.
Also, you are allowed to put down a contraption that isn't connected to a power source. It won't actually have any affect on your machine, but it is sometimes necessary.
Multiplier cards can be played as part of your "main line" (horizontally) thus allowing a single multiplier to effect multiple contraptions.
If you misread these rules, I can see you lost some of the fun of the game. Although I do think there's more strategy than you realize. Whenever I play, I find that rarely does a player ever pull far ahead. While the notion that a player who doesn't attack will somehow be spared, the game has a great physical reminder of who is winning. A player with a high stack of cards is a target, regardless of how much they aren't attacking. Only if players are playing some kind of "grudge match" does the game fall apart. But that's true of any game.
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